Harvey Sherrat has been on the urgent list for a scoliosis procedure more than two years now. The Taoiseach's broken promise, that no child would have to wait for more than four months for such a procedure, amounts to a betrayal of Harvey and his family. In recent days, Harvey's mother was shocked to see an image of her son online, accompanied by a racist post saying that resources are being allocated to immigrants while children like Harvey languish on waiting lists. To her credit, Harvey's mother replied to the post and dismantled the racist arguments. For her efforts, she was bombarded with hostile messages. For example, one message said, "You would rather let your son go without treatment than risk calling out unchecked immigration, crippling Ireland's welfare system". She was also called a "treacherous whore". The vile messages only got worse when Gript did an opinion piece on the issue. Does the Taoiseach feel any shame that his broken promise is not only negatively affecting Harvey, his family and many other children and families but is now also providing ammunition for racists and their vile politics of hate?

The Deputy should be ashamed for trying to correlate or link any of them in any way shape or form to me. Linking me to disgusting, vile, racist posts is quite a disgusting thing to do. I thought the Deputy was better than that, but maybe not. The reality of the situation is that my commitment to scoliosis treatment has seen more people get their surgeries carried out in this country. The Minister for Health's commitment has seen a clinical lead appointed. We all call out racism. We should be united on that and we should not use it for cheap political potshots.